thoughts on the life and culture of independent schools

Leadership

11/07/2013

Luke Johnson's column in yesterday's Financial Times (6 November 2013) focused on the need for founders (of an enterprise) to apply grit in order to find success, when the going gets tough. After all, as Johnson says, "On certain days business can feel like a war of attrition. [...] It could be argued that struggle is at the heart of enterprise." He goes on to state that "any entrepreneur should be good at coping with the stress that inevitably arises from such conflict and striving."

In schools, I'm sure that, if asked, we could provide a kind of Top 10 list of the most stressful events we could imagine. As a matter of fact, it would prove a most instructive exercise, I'm sure -- it would make us realize that no one would be able to take time off during a time of high stress because of fatigue. And that matters.

Although Johnson is talking about entrepreneurs specifically, I think that his advice applies to those of us in independent schools as well: "Resilience in an entrepreneur is more important than brilliance--grit trumps almost every other trait."

10/22/2013

I've been thinking recently about idea networks and knowledge networks.

An idea network is not the same as a knowledge network. A knowledge network is more akin to a knowledge center, a repository of items that folks wish to search with the intent of finding hard data/info that can be used. It be social, also, because that approach may be useful in locating or identifying existing knowledge. By contrast, an idea network is more of a community consultation space that facilitates/encourages connection and dialogue among people of diverse backgrounds and experiences who are looking to test an idea that they might have or to listen for weak signals to determine what ideas are beginning to take shape. There is a place for both networks, but they really serve different purposes.

I'm interested in idea networks because I'm interested in school cultures, especially schools that are trying to align their cultures for innovation. That's really the hard part, isn't it? Talking about innovation and intentionally aligning one's school culture for innovation are different things altogether.

If they're serious about innovation, one of the first questions that TTAFI (pronounced "taffy", trying-to-align-for-innovation) schools ought to wrestle with is where they will source their ideas.

You may be thinking that the raison d'être of innovative schools is to produce ideas in-house. Not really. There's a difference between being an inventive school and an innovative school. An inventive school is one that first discovers or happens upon an idea (process, product, etc.) while an innovative school first brings that invention into practice in a way that has societal impact.

So, if you're a TTAFI school, you could produce ideas in-house...and be limited by it because you're not engaged in the work of innovation, but invention. What you do with it--the action stage--is what defines an innovative school. And it's easier to get to the action stage if your school espouses idea networking.

For example, if you're a TTAFI school, have you considered what percentage of your innovative ideas (as opposed to inventions) you'd like to see come from internal sources and/or external sources? If you're truly interested in being innovative, it would make sense to allow the external sourcing of many of these ideas, in the spirit of "open innovation." After all, do you want to spend the time inventing something or putting it into action, creating impact that is societal (whether within your own community or in an even greater context)? Again, that's the difference between an inventive school and an innovative school: impact.

All of that brings me to this question: if you're a TTAFI school or a self-professed "innovative school," is your professional development program reflective of an idea network? Or is it more of a closed-circuit knowledge center? Consider the cultural difference(s).

10/03/2013

As I've mentioned before, I simply adore Luke Johnson's column "The entrepreneur" in the Wednesday issue of the Financial Times. Yesterday's column (October 2, 2013) dealt with the need for leaders to manage their time as well as their staff.

His premise is that "leaders need to be as good at time management as they are at staff management. They must understand the difference between urgent and important. And they have to know how to prioritise ruthlessly."

This notion of ruthless prioritization struck a chord. It is absolutely essential, as I've learned from experience. Mark Twain's words in that regard resonate with me: "Good judgment is the result of experience and experience the result of bad judgment." He was right. I've learned the art of ruthless prioritization the hard way, like Johnson, who says that his philosophy has been "the harder you work, the more successful you are. The trouble with this approach is that work can seep into the rest of your life -- evenings, weekends and vacations."

He highlights the notion of thoughtful and balanced leaders having a hinterland, and that makes good sense to me, as I've had to cultivate that myself. And, though I do have one, it remains a work in progress, which is how I prefer it. I don't want my hinterland to be static; I prefer a dynamic one that is a kind of "learning retreat."

And the key to keeping it dynamic is to engage continually in ruthless prioritization so that I can do just that!

To me, the act of inserting the adjective "strategic" is a pathology, and it's rather rampant in educational circles. We delude ourselves into believing that the insertion somehow alters the state of being of the noun itself, elevating it to some new plane of existence. Strategic thinker. Strategic plan. Strategic management. Strategic staffing.

Someone who is designated a thinker is someone who has a very well-developed faculty for thinking, i.e. for employing his/her mind objectively and rationally when it comes to evaluating something. Isn't that profound enough in and of itself? What a compliment! So-and-so is a thinker. Bravo!

But strategic thinker? What does that mean, exactly? Does it mean that the person thinks in ways that provide him/her with competitive advantage over another thinker? Or does it mean that the person thinks about strategy, generally speaking? And if so, what kind of strategy -- good strategy or bad strategy? We don't even have a good understanding of what strategy is, yet we are audacious enough to utilize the adjectival form as a moniker of distinction?

08/01/2013

Two articles in the current issue of Korn/Ferry Briefings on Talent & Leadership really hit home. Each delves into the value of a liberal arts education as the ideal formative background for leadership. The authors (leaders themselves) and other leaders highlighted/cited have liberal arts backgrounds to which they return constantly as they contemplate strategy, vision, and the development of talent in their organizations. For them, the liberal arts trained them to look at context. Context is everything.

Speaking of context, what resonated all the more strongly with me was the context within which these articles were placed. This issue of Briefings centers on education, with a notable focus on STEM jobs, programs, initiatives, etc.

For all the talk about STEM in this issue, these heavy-hitting articles extoled the virtues of a liberal arts background. These leaders (including a military leader and a Fortune 100 leader) were adamant about honing one's mind across disciplines, analyzing, synthesizing...tying together ideas, peoples, themes, movements. So much aligns with what we value in independent schools.

The STEM jobs are very real, yet I was moved by these leaders' arguments in favor of a full-blown liberal arts background for those who aspire to leadership. The liberal arts allow a person to contextualize what is happening (or needs to happen) in an organization by considering similarly-structured events, whether from history or literature. There is strength to be drawn from historical or literary figures as well, strength that impacts a leader's character and helps to inform his/her decisions. Nowhere was this more evident than in some coursework I completed this summer: the group was predominantly engineers (STEM folks, to be sure), and yet we worked through a decision-making problem by considering the context of Shakespeare's Hamlet. It was, in a word, powerful.

What worries me about the preponderance of STEM initiatives (buildings, programs, etc.) in independent schools is that, without meaning to, yet by not paying close enough attention, our schools may downplay (or, even worse, dismiss and then lose) the contextual value that liberal arts provide, all in an effort to appear competitive on the STEM front.

07/28/2013

One of the key markers for school leadership (not just the Head, but anyone who is part of a leadership team) ought to be "learning agility," or the ability to learn quickly, apply those lessons, observe and measure the impact of those lessons, and rethink/adapt/adjust strategy, going forward.

What does learning agility require?

It requires emotional intelligence, maturity, and resilience.

How does one acquire those attributes?

They result from experiences that are emotionally-charged and very challenging, often requiring personal sacrifice. That kind of learning "sticks." Not only does it stick, it fundamentally changes people.

05/14/2013

We're all faced with the perennial question of how we might motivate others in our schools. In a recent interview with Karen Christensen (Rotman Magazine, Spring 2013), David Rock, founder of the NeuroLeadership Institute, shares that "they key is to create an atmosphere that promotes Status, Certainty, Autonomy, Relatedness, and Fairness. We call this the SCARF model." I find the model worthwhile because so many independent schools are positioned to implement it; some already do, without knowing it.

Status - "Within the brain, feelings of low status actually provoke the kind of cortisol elevation associated with sleep deprivation and chronic anxiety. [...] One common threat is the custom of offering feedback. The mere phrase 'Can I give you some advice?' puts people on the defensive, because they perceive the person offering advice as claiming superiority. Inside your brain, it is the cortisol equivalent of hearing footsteps in the dark." (30-31)

Certainty - We crave it. "At work, not knowing what will happen next can be profoundly debilitating, because it requires extra neural energy, which can undermine performance and disengage people from the present. Breaking a complex project down into small steps can help to create a feeling of certainty. Although it's highly unlikely that everything will go as planned, people will function better because the project now seems less ambiguous." (31)

Autonomy - "As long as people feel they can execute their own decisions without much oversight, stress will remain under control. [...] A perception of reduced autonomy--for example, when someone is being micromanaged--can easily generate a threat response. When an employee experiences a lack of control, his or her perception of uncertainty is aroused, further raising stress levels." (31)

Relatedness - "In the brain, the ability to feel trust and empathy about others is shaped by whether they are perceived to be part of the same social group. [...] In terms of workplace implications, this means that teams of diverse people cannot simply be thrown together. They must be deliberately assembled in a way that minimizes the potential for threat responses to arise." (31)

Fairness - "The perception that an even has been 'unfair' generates a strong response in the limbic system, stirring hostility and undermining trust. The cognitive need for fairness is so strong that some people are willing to [...] commit themselves to an organization they recognize as fair." (31) In terms of an example of a threat, "the 'old boys' network provides an egregious example: those who are not a part of it always perceive their organization as fundamentally unfair, no matter how many mentoring programs are put in place." (31)

The reason why I find this SCARF model so interesting is because, when people experience a rewarding SCARF system, they are considered to be deeply engaged. Engagement is challenging to measure, but, aided by the SCARF model, I am certain that we could devise a way to measure it through a fairly straightforward survey that would provide us with some constructive/useful data points.

In this climate, not only do we want to see students who are deeply engaged, we want/need to see faculty, staff, and leaders who are deeply engaged. Success in this realm will beget success.

04/24/2013

Poignant piece in Chief Learning Officer magazine (online version) today. The topic is talent development + learning, and the excerpt is below (it's "business-y" in terms of feel, but the principles apply to schools). Of particular interest to me is the second paragraph. In order to be impactful vis-à-vis strategy, though, schools would benefit from a greater number of folks with broad experience rather than siloed experience. Otherwise, how does a school anticipate needs in the various areas? Professional development shouldn't be just about faculty, it should be about all adult learners in the community...and that would look fairly different from most models today.

One of the most important factors in building the workforce of the future is how organizations develop and train the skills needed in the workplace. This goes beyond formal training and learning; it extends to how to build a learning culture, learning on the job and using technology to deliver embedded learning experiences. In this context, the critical role of learning and development professionals in driving impactful learning strategies becomes clearer.

To increase impact, learning leaders need to understand future business strategy and skills needs. Learning leaders need to up their game in understanding and measuring the impact of learning on performance outcomes, so that they can make the strategic business case for investment in learning programs, tools and capabilities.

04/03/2013

Recently, I started to participate in spinning classes at my local YMCA. I've always been a fan of bicycle racing, especially the Tour de France, because, to me, there is much to be learned about leadership when it comes to cycling.

I've discovered these leadership lessons exist even in spinning classes at the Y! For those unfamiliar with such classes, imagine a room full of stationary bikes with an instructor seated on his/her own bike in front of the group, where s/he can control the music, ventilation, and encourage participants by means of a portable microphone. It's a serious calorie burn!

It's funny how leadership can exist in so many forms. In this case, what I'm thinking of is the spinning instructors. Each has her (in this case, I've only had female instructors) own "spin" on the workout; each one is a leader. Yet, in paying attention to myself (i.e. how I react to the workout, including how I feel afterward), I've noticed that certain instructors affect me more deeply than others.

For each instructor (leader), I do the work, but 'doing the work' doesn't mean that I'm satisfied or that I feel nourished after the workout. For me, I perform better and feel more nourished when I'm with an instructor who lays out the vision for the course before we begin, then narrates along the way, allowing my imagination to construct the mental course -- hills, trying to outrun dogs, etc. I perform well, but not at my best, when I have an instructor who is very methodical and "correct' about leading the class, but who doesn't provide me with an opportunity to flex my imaginative muscles as much.

In other words, I've noticed that, for me, vision (and constantly keeping me focused on that vision) invigorates me during the ride, makes me notice the work a bit less, and gives me a real sense of communal (as well as individual) accomplishment when we finish the 'ride.'

It made me think about school leadership. There are leaders, then there are leaders. The first group includes those who do things 'by the book,' meaning that they do things well, operations are solid, and the school functions nicely. It's a good group. The second group, though, comprises leaders who are visionary and inspirational; they keep everyone 'pumped' and stretching for a goal. Everyone who works with such leaders feels jazzed about what they're doing and what the school is doing. The school doesn't just function nicely; it sings!

All this from spinning classes at the Y... Leadership is all around us. But do we always see it?

04/02/2013

I'm a fan of Andrew Hill's "On Management" weekly column in the Financial Times. This morning, I was delighted to come across his piece on "the hardest innovation."

Q: What is the hardest innovation?

A: Killing off projects.

As anyone in schools knows, it is tremendoulsy challenging to sunset projects that really ought to fade away. Hill states that the struggle involved in persuading any company [school] to stop doing certain things is downright painful. We tend to use nice terms, such as "concentrate our focus" to refer to the notion of stopping a project. His point, quite simply, is that we cannot become more strategic by focusing more on something; an increased focus in one area means cleaning up another area and moving it off the radar screen entirely. Focus demands it.

I like one paragraph immensely:

"Why is it so hard for companies to kill off projects? Many leaders think it is more courageous to advance, expand and aquire than to retreat, shrink and divest. At a recent strategy meeting I attended, executives' warm enthusiasm for new ventures was inversely proportional to the chill and doublespeak that filled the room when they were challenged to take the axe to longstanding initiatives. [...] Yet when organizations stop to scrutinize themselves, the accretion of unheeded strategy visions they find hanging around them is extraordinary." [emphasis mine]